SPORT Republic CEO and Saints strategist Rasmus Ankersen explained the decision to stick with Nathan Jones during the latest fans’ forum at St Mary’s.

Ankersen was also joined on a panel in the Aspire Lounge at the stadium by Sport Republic’s Henrik Kraft and Southampton’s Martin Semmens and Toby Steele.

The board members faced supporters’ questions on a range of topics but, despite attempts to move the conversation on, much of it was dominated by Jones’s future.

The manager has been called into question after six defeats in his first seven Premier League games was followed by a bizarre string of comments in his post-match press conference at Brentford.

After Jones admitted ‘compromising’ in his methods during the first months of his tenure, Saints fans bombarded the club’s media with Jones out messages.

Ankersen, speaking at the fans forum, responded: “It’s no secret that if you keep losing games, at some point you hit the point where it’s enough.

“From the inside, we have a lot more reference points, we see the work that goes on every day.

“As long as we see that the work that Nathan is doing at the training ground is high quality, then we have something to believe in, and believe that he can turn it around.”

He added: “Nathan has been a part of selecting these new players and selling the project to them. I think it’s fair that he gets time with these new weapons he now has.

“When we hire and fire managers it’s never a one man show. We discuss. We thought it was the right decision when we hired Nathan. I understand the frustration with the results. I promise you we are working really, really hard to get out of this.

“I would lie to you if I said that I’m completely happy with the performances. I had hoped to see more improvement, but if we didn’t feel that Nathan could improve these players, he wouldn’t be here.”

Ankersen, who was pictured present at first-team training on Tuesday and was leading on the club’s recruitment in January due to the absence of a head of recruitment – despite Sport Republic’s initial plan to avoid hands-on involvement, has himself faced criticism.

“We have no problem admitting mistakes. The ego won’t get in the way of this decision. We will do what is right for the club,” the Dane said.

“As I said, I’m starting to repeat myself a bit here, we try to do what we can to make the right decisions for the club. If we think the right thing is to change the manager, we will change the manager.

“We have a belief that we can improve with what we have now, we will keep believing in that until we don’t believe it anymore.

“I don’t think the players are being poorly managed. There are lots of variables that go into the performance of a football team. It’s a league where everyone gets better all the time, it’s a very competitive league.”

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